I remember when I was twelve, I had my first experience of attending in an English class. It was a beginner class and all its students were around twelve, but the book chosen wasn't quite matched with our level. The first word we should utter was THINK /ÉŞĹ‹k/ but unfortunately due to being unfamiliar with its pronunciation I uttered it as /sÉŞĹ‹k/. The teacher pointed out several times that /ÉŞĹ‹k/ not /sÉŞĹ‹k/, but I stare at him as if the cat got my tongue and I remain totally silent. Suddenly the teacher was devastated by my bad pronunciation and got me out of class not to ruin others pronunciation! The teacher's impulsive behavior toward my error posed deep depression in my attitude and aptitude in learning English. Errors are inseparable part of learning second language. They can be significant for researcher to find more on language learning and acquisition process, for teachers to figure out their class needs, and for learners to overcome their learning obstacle.
The first thing to be considered is the significance that errors provide for researchers by empirical evidences on how language is acquired or learnt. Researcher use children's errors to show that learningïor acquiringï is an active process. They look at errors systematically, so when a child use ed to form not only past regular verbïwalkedïbut also past irregularïgoedï they understand that the child pass one stage, forming regular verb, and about to another one, forming irregular verb. On the other hand; researchers conduct study on adult learning L2 as second or foreign language to indicate active process of language learning. If we divided the distance between L1 and L2 into several parts, errors of each part are specified to that part, so if the learner be in part three he just commit part three errors and not other parts.
The second point is about advantage of learners errors for teachers to fulfil their class shortcoming. Analyzing learners errors, the teachers gain to important criteria that can be used in their learning plans. First by doing systematic examination on learners' errors, they figure out how much of the learning road paved and how much remained. When you teach past tenses to your learners then on exam just 53% of your learners get acceptable scores, to some great extend it shows that you don't achieve your ultimate goal, fully learning, and there is remaining parts in process of your learners learning. In another step, by scrutinizing learners errors teachers can introduce right and matched materials for the learners. If just 53% of your class got acceptable scores, maybe it is more efficient if you introduce Modern English one instead of Modern English two.
Yet the most important quip is how significant errors are for learner to understand about major obstacles in their way of learning. Starting to learn, the learners always feel obstacles in their front that cause them committing errors. Learners, if be discreet enough, can use errors in two ways. First, by rooting their errors up they find the source or sources of errors. If you are in advance level but you can't write a cohesive paper it suggests that the key lie in the lower level. On next, you, knowing source of your errors, can do something to eradicate them. If you really have problem with your writing, you should counsel with your writing teacher to introduce material to overcome the error and obstacle.
To sum up, errors are significant for researcher to prove the theory of processing of learning, for teacher to have a balanced class, and for learners to overcome their obstacle in learning. What is important is our view toward errors. We should have positive attitude for our learners' errors as a teacher and for our errors as a learner. We can use errors against errors so it can be a powerful weapon against our learning problems.
